Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia - Widmann, Beethoven & Haydn - 11/09/24

Jorg Widmann: Con Brio 

Ludwig von Beethoven: Piano Concerto No. 5 in E-flat Major (Emperor) 

Joseph Haydn: Symphony No.103 in E-flat Major, Hob.I:103 (Drumroll) 

Conductor: Maxim Emelyanychev 

Piano: Leif Ove Andsnes 

After a month of September spent exploring less-trodden but very exciting spots of Emilia-Romagna and a month of October spent enjoying the ever-bustling city of Naples (If you think that New York is the city that never sleeps, you’ve clearly never been to the Parthenopean city) and some of its quieter surroundings areas, I eagerly made it back to Rome for what will hopefully be another laid-back winter. 

And while the Eternal City is partly disfigured these days because of its frantic last-minute efforts to freshen up for the 2025 Jubilee on top of its more long-term large-scale efforts to build or upgrade three subway stations, it still offers priceless perks such as a wonderfully mild climate, unforgettable culinary experiences, a one-of-its-kind journey through Western civilization, and high-quality classical music at the futuristic-looking Auditorium Parco della Musica Ennio Morricone. 

Earlier in the fall, as I was checking out the Orchestra dell’Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia’s 2024-2025 season, I noticed that Leif Ove Andsnes would join them for Beethoven’s epic Emperor piano concerto in early November, and I just figured that I had to be there. Not only is it always a true pleasure to hear this certified virtuoso perform — After a couple of decades following him, I should know — but it is also always nice to see a familiar face on a stage. 

Of course, little did I know when I got my ticket that by the time the concert date would come around, I would be needing all the help I could get to fight overwhelming feelings of election blues (and rage). But they say that music heals all wounds, so it was with even higher expectations than usual that I walked the few blocks from my place to the Parco della Musica to find my spot in the almost-sold-out Sala Santa Cecilia for the usual civilized starting time of 6:00 PM. 

Although I had heard of its lasting popularity as a concert opener, I had never actually heard Jorg Widmann’s Con Brio before last Saturday. Avowedly inspired by Beethoven, and in fact often incorporated in Beethoven-centric programs, the short piece does in fact overflow with energy and inventiveness, even if not every idea sounds fully developed or controlled. On Saturday, young Russian conductor, as well as pianist, harpsichordist and cornetist, Maxim Emelyanychev led the orchestra in a lovely and lively take on it that immediately set a cheerful tone for the rest of the evening. 

But most of us were obviously there to hear Leif Ove Andsnes apply his supreme technical skills and artless musicianship to Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 5, a prospect that brought me back almost 10 years ago in New York, where I attended a memorable two-concert series titled “Beethoven Journey” consisting of him and the equally adventurous-minded Mahler Chamber Orchestra fearlessly rocking Beethoven’s five piano concertos to delighted crowds in Carnegie Hall’s Stern Auditorium. 

Back in Rome, it felt like no time had passed as Andsnes, a famously understated presence who always lets the score speak for itself, delivered another thrilling performance of the ever-green Emperor, Beethoven’s last, longest and grandest piano concerto. It was noble without being pompous, poised without being rigid, and was keenly aware of when to lighten up too. It had just the right amount of invigorating zest in the Allegro, Zen serenity in the Adagio and unadulterated joy in the Rondo. Bravo! 

The applause was long and loud, and Andsnes eventually came back with an enchanting little treat by Frédéric Chopin that was another big hit with audience and musicians. It was seriously so good to see him and especially to hear him again. 

After the intermission, the eleventh of the twelve London symphonies by Joseph Haydn got going with the celebrated extended drumroll that earned it its nickname, and then kept going with its carefully balanced mix of sophistication, fun and earthiness. By all accounts, Haydn’s stay in London was a particularly happy and productive period of his life, and the many well-rounded works that came out of it only seem to confirm that notion. On Saturday, maestro Emelyanychev and the orchestra made sure to convey the Symphony No.103’s superior craftsmanship, unstoppable momentum and light-hearted mood for a totally uplifting journey, the kind we will certainly need more of in the years to come.

Académie Provençale des Amis de Stuttgart - Masterpieces and Discoveries - 08/14/24

Eugène Walckiers: String Quintet No. 4 in A Major, Opus 108 

Joseph Haydn: Cello Concerto No. 1 in C Major, Hob. VIIb/1 

Bela Bluche: Xiloeta, small suite in trio, for Trumpet, Viola and Bass 

Johannes Brahms: String Quintet No. 2 in G Major, Opus 111 

Bela Bluche: Bass 

Fanton Clerc: Violin 

Johannes Eva: Viola 

Carola Eva-Richter: Violin 

Elisa Garzia: Violin 

Nicolas Hugon: Cello 

Noé Inui: Violin 

Hedy Kerpitchian: Violin 

Simon Lasserre: Trumpet 

Myriam-Elena Siegrist: Cello 

Esther Steinmeier: Cello 

Just like the first concert of my 2024 summer season took place in Bonlieu-sur-Roubion’s Basilique Sainte-Anne, that’s also where I was with my mom last Wednesday evening for what will probably be the last concert of my 2024 summer season. This time, however, the entertainment would be provided by the music students of the Académie Provençale des Amis de Stuttgart (Provençal Academy of Friends of Stuttgart), a mouthful meant to convey the tight friendships among the promising French and German musicians of the APAS, which was created over 30 years ago by Stanislas Bogucz, a violist from the Stuttgart Chamber Orchestra who had decided to settle in the nearby village of Roussas with his family after having fallen in love with it. 

According to the academy’s concentrated training, the dozen students had met for the first time and tirelessly rehearsed during the previous week, and then embarked on an intense week-long tour that was taking them to five different towns to present two different programs. I had assumed that their youth all but guaranteed that they could effortlessly handle the grueling schedule, and sure enough, they all appeared in top shape when we and a large group of music lovers caught up with them half-way through their journey. 

On the other hand, the surprise of the evening was that, due to the wildly unpredictable weather that day, the concert location had been moved from the Basilique Sainte-Anne’s beautiful courtyard to its equally beautiful barn, which was a spacious, expertly restored, all-stone music venue. So that’s where we ended up, after a quiet visit to the equally beautiful church that had also been expertly restored, my mom’s typical extreme caution regarding how it would take to get there meaning that we in the end arrived almost an hour early. 

I will readily confess that I had no idea who 19th-century French composer and flutist Eugène Walckiers was before last Wednesday evening, and after having thoroughly enjoyed his String Quintet No. 4 in A Major, I can only wonder how come such a talented artist has been neglected for so long. The work did not break any new ground, or make any kind of noticeable splash for that matter, but it was spontaneously engaging and delightfully melodic, and we all happily took it in. Even better, the acoustics proved to be remarkably good for a building that had been designed to store hay. 

At the opposite end of the recognition spectrum from Walckiers stood our beloved Papa Haydn and his ever-green Cello Concerto No. 1 in C Major, which was in fact the main reason of our presence in Bonlieu-sur-Roubion on a school night. Even if we had heard a terrific performance of the challenging solo part the previous month in Montélimar’s historical collegiate church courtesy of local girl Astrig Siranossian, we were ready, willing and available for another round of it courtesy of Nicolas Hugon, a long-time member of the Orchestre Philharmonique de Strasbourg, in Basilique Sainte-Anne’s slightly less historical barn. 

The young man, who looked like a seasoned veteran among the fresh faces surrounding him, proved to be every bit as satisfying a player as his predecessor in Montélimar, and this was by all accounts a tall order to fill. Proficiently backed by an endearingly small but highly motivated orchestra led by the Orchestre Philharmonique de Strasbourg’s first violinist Hedy Kerpitchian, his thrilling performance was definitely a master class in itself, full of grandeur and virtuosity, but also warmth and earthiness. 

After a short intermission, we all returned to our seats for endlessly inquisitive Bela Bluche’s Xiloeta, small suite in trio, for Trumpet, Viola and Bass, which was a short piece that had just been composed by a member of the academy for the academy, and as such had its world première on Wednesday evening. As its full name indicates, Xiloeta featured the unusual trio of trumpet, viola and bass, respectively played by Johannes Eva, Simon Lasserre and Bela Bluche, who separately and jointly came up with decidedly intriguing sounds that kept the audience on their feet the entire time. 

Earlier in the month, we had the opportunity to hear the first movement of Brahms’ String Quintet No. 2 in G Major in Le Poët-Laval, which had been a wonderful but ultimately frustrating experience. We wanted it all! Well, it does seem that dream do come true in Drome Provençale in summer, because that’s just what we got on Wednesday night in Bonlieu-sur-Roubion, and it was an even more wonderful experience indeed. Sounding terribly excited to sink their teeth in such a meaty and savory treat, the dynamic ensemble on the stage hit the ground running, occasionally covering the stunning solo cello lines during the first movement in their boundless enthusiasm, and consistently played their hearts out all the way to the Hungarian-flavoured grand finale. Va-va-voom! 

But the party was not over yet, as the entire group came back for an inspired hymn-like party favour, for which they all sat in a semi-circle in the middle of which sat Bela Bluche, who produced some dazzling percussion from what looked like a large dome-shaped drum. An unexpected but memorable ending to a very rewarding season.

Festival Classic au Jazz - Femmes d’esprit, jardins secrets - 08/11/24

Hildegard von Bingen: Canticles of Ecstasy arranged for Violin, Cello and Accordion 

Elizabeth Jacquet de La Guerre: Sonata No. 1 in D Minor for Violin and Cello 

Maria Theresia von Paradis: Sicilienne in E-flat Major 

Sophie Lacaze: Histoire sans paroles (2024 version for Violin, Cello and Accordion) 

Sofia Gubaidulina: Silenzio for Violin, Cello and Accordion 

Pascal Contet: Accordion 

Saskia Lethiec: Violin 

David Lowerse: Cello 

After a short week in Auvergne filled with family bonding via eating, drinking and sight-seeing, not to mention talking, I got back to Dieulefit just in time to attend a concert whose intriguing program titled “Femmes d’esprit, jardins secrets” (Spirited women, secret gardens) included remarkable women composers from the 12th to the 21st century, as part of the three-day Festival Classic au Jazz, which for the seventh year in a row had been organized by the intrepid Pradel Association and its fearless leader Pascaline Dallemagne, in nearby Le Poët-Laval. 

Although I was disappointed that the performance would not take place in the sidehill village’s small stone amphitheater with the panoramic view, I was excited at the thought of enjoying women-celebrating music under the stars in the small courtyard in front of the castle, a location which would be used for the first time on Sunday evening—at the ungodly but admittedly cooler time of 9:00 PM—by the still young but fast-growing festival. I was in fact so much looking forward to it that I had even decided to temporarily put aside my natural dislike of accordion music for the occasion. 

My mom and I briefly worried about the size of the audience when we noticed that the nearby parking lot was not as packed as usual, but the courtyard eventually filled up with a sizable group of about 50 music lovers, which unsurprisingly included quite a few regulars. And while the event logistics was still a work-in-progress, with missing music stands and insufficient light for the cello’s sheet music (violin and accordion having joined the digital age), not to mention cooing pigeons and chirping crickets, everything eventually fell into place at about 9:15 PM (Not that I was counting or anything). 

At that point, we quickly discovered that the program, which was further described as “An ode to women’s vitality and creativity”, had been concocted by, low and behold, a man, an enlightened one, obviously, who turned out to be prominent accordionist Pascal Contet, who was also the new musician on the block on Sunday evening, violinist Saskia Lethiec and cellist David Lowerse being familiar faces in and around the area in summer. And he forever endeared himself to us throughout the concert, first with his superior musicianship, and then with countless insights into the composers, the works, and the fascinating history of the accordion. 

He was also the one who kicked things off with a digital recording of 12th-century German composer and philosopher Hildegard von Bingen’s Canticles of Ecstasy, which was progressively joined first by the accordion, and later by the strings just as the darkness of the night was falling upon us. Although I generally do not see the point of having recorded music during live concerts, I’ll be the first to admit that the ethereal beauty of the taped medieval chants subtly enhanced by the live instruments created an experience that was as unique as it was memorable. 

We then fast-forwarded about five centuries, and turned our undivided attention to Elizabeth Jacquet de La Guerre, one of the very few highly esteemed women musicians and composers during the reign of Louis XV. Of course, being born in a musical family and marrying an organist did not hurt, but being a child prodigy-turned-pioneer is not always all it’s cracked up to be, and even a veteran such as Lowerse admitted that neither he nor Lethiec had ever heard of her. That did not stop them for delivering a brilliant performance of her genuinely attractive Sonata No. 1 in D Minor for Violin and Continuo that had been adapted for the cello. 

About a century later, Viennese native Maria Theresia von Paradis made a name for herself as musician, singer, composer, as well as music school founder and teacher. Although she went blind at a very young age, that did not stop her from learning from Salieri, palling around with Mozart, successfully touring Europe, and contributing to the creation of the braille writing system. Her most famous work, Sicilienne, may or may not have been composed by her, but regardless of its origins, we all relished the piece’s wonderfully Schubertian quality, even if we heard a partially compromised version of it, the wind having decided to wreak awoke upon Lowerse’s carefully organized score for a few agonizing seconds. 

After having jumped forward two more centuries, we arrived in our modern era with French composer and teacher Sophie Lacaze. A friend and colleague of Contet’s, she did not hesitate to write a new version of her Histoire sans paroles for Violin, Cello and Piano that allows the accordion to take over the piano’s part. Originally written for the Australian Association, the score boasts the uncanny ability to transport its audience straight to the Land Down Under with an engagingly tribal first movement followed by an eerily dreamy second one (Desert mirages, anyone?). And that’s just what happened on Sunday night, with a little help from Lowerse’s wife too, who found herself working not as a page-turner, but as a page-holder, for her husband for a little while. 

We remained in the present time with Silenzio for Violin, Cello and Accordion by superstar Soviet-Russian composer Sofia Gubaidulina, who is still going strong at the wise age of 92. A born out-spoken experimenter, which means that Dmitri Shostakovich was a big fan, and the Soviet government not so much, she possibly owes her life to Contet’s accordion teacher, who decades ago helped get a literally starving Gubaidulina out of Russia and into Germany, where she still lives. Her convoluted life clearly never hampered her adventurous spirit though, and on Sunday evening, her resolutely dense and intimate Silenzio captivated us with its endless exploration of the ever-elusive border between sound and silence. As they say, the journey is indeed the reward. 

We got to the end of the original program in just over an hour (I swear I was not counting), and after a hearty round of applause, the trio decided to treat us to an encore to which, let’s face it, we were totally entitled. And that’s how we got to groove to von Paradis’ delightful Sicilienne one more time, without the momentary disappearance of the cello this time. Even better, this thoroughly terrific concert reconciled me with accordion music, as long as it does not include any of that oh so grating popular French music that is.

Comps Historique - E il piano va - All-Brahms - 08/02/24

Johannes Brahms: Piano Sonata No. 3 in F Minor, Opus 5 

Johannes Brahms: Three intermezzi, Opus 117 

Sylvie Sagot-Duvauroux: Piano 

Last week, after two late school nights on Monday and Tuesday, I took the not only prudent but necessary steps to go back to a more reasonable bedtime schedule on Wednesday and Thursday, so that on Friday I would be back in decent shape to attend yet another one of the countless concerts going on around Dieulefit, in this case the piano recital by Sylvie Sagot-Duvauroux in nearby Comps’ small but eye-popping église Saint-Pierre-et-Saint-Paul (Church of Saint-Peter and Saint-Paul). 

The 12th-century Romanesque church has in fact earned the “Historic Monument” label because of its significance to France’s historical and cultural heritage, the exhaustive restoration it underwent a while ago having further brought out its elegant architecture and a few unique details. Add to that its priceless setting on top of a hill and surrounded by some of Drôme Provençale’s most bucolic countryside, and you have a landmark worthy of a detour, even a guided tour, with or without the occasional musical bonus. 

The bonus was included last Friday evening though, at the blessed hour of 6:00 PM, with intrepid pianist Sylvie Sagot-Duvauroux, brought to us by the indefatigable Comps Historique association. Since founding the E il piano va company about two decades ago, Sagot-Duvauroux has tirelessly taken her “migratory” 1928 Bechstein quarter grand piano to the most unlikely places, including prisons, hospitals and Emmaüs communities, to spread the word about the joys of live music to frequently uninitiated crowds. 

On Friday, it certainly looked like her advocacy work was cut out for her as the church quickly filled up to capacity and then some with eager music lovers, including a few familiar faces, who had come from far and wide, and very early for some of them. Fact is, the first come, first served and pay-what-you-can rules that were enforced for the occasion often prove to be strong incentives for people to show up in order to take advantage of a good bargain and a good seat. And sure enough, they all came. 

The advertised program included Chopin and Brahms, but once we had sat down and checked the leaflet, my mom and I gathered that it would be an all-Brahms feast, and I for one was not the least disappointed (No offense to Chopin). The first piece on the program was the Piano Sonata No. 3 in F Minor he wrote at the young age of 20, still under the mighty influence of Beethoven. It is a stupendously sprawling five-movement score that relies on classical structure while also exuding free-flowing romanticism; it also incidentally turned him into a bona fide star. 

Brahms’ biggest solo piano work, and last piano sonata, is epic, bold, and overflowing with myriad ideas and sounds, in which one can easily detect the effervescence of the promising youth and the depth of the born perfectionist. On Friday, as soon as Sagot-Duvauroux started to play after her short introduction, we realized that we were in for a treat, and that the treat would be resonating in our ears for quite some time considering our proximity to the piano. That said, once we had decided to make the most of it by surrendering to the immersive aspect of the experience, the rest was magic. 

After having received a well-deserved ovation and imparted another enlightening introduction, Sagot-Duvauroux turned her attention to a smaller but no less exciting composition by a mature Brahms this time, with his Three intermezzi, Opus 117. As contemplative as the piano sonata had been lively, these three “lullabies for his sorrows” were all composed with his dear Clara Schumann in mind, and still stand as poignant testimonies of their nearly forty years of love and friendship. 

Staunchly respectful of the triptych’s musical quality and personal context, Sagot-Duvauroux delivered a dainty performance that subtly emphasized each piece’s delicate lyricism and haunting darkness, exquisitely evoking passing time and looming twilight, and maybe a few regrets. Who would have thought grumpy old Brahms was partial to so much introspection? It is a tough order to bring a large audience packed in a small space to complete silence, but that’s just what happened on that evening in the little church on the little hill. 

As the audience exploded in vigorous applause and maintained it, Sagot-Duvauroux eventually came back with, not Brahms, which might have been too predictable, but a classic among classics of the Baroque repertoire, a piano version of Johann Sebastian Bach’s Air on a G String. A memorable parting gift for a memorable concert, so much so that afterwards Sagot-Duvauroux herself gently pointed out that nothing more could be played no matter how insistent we were. And rightly so.

Les musicales du Poët-Laval - Nathanaël Gouin - Rachmaninoff & Mussorgsky - 07/30/24

Sergei Rachmaninoff: Isle of the Dead (Transcription by Nathanaël Gouin) 

Sergei Rachmaninoff: Études-Tableaux, Op. 33 (Études 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 8 and 9) 

Modest Mussorgsky: Pictures at an Exhibition 

Nathanaël Gouin: Piano 

Last Monday evening, at the end of the terrific first concert of Les musicales du Poët-Laval (The Musical Events of Le Poët-Laval), its founder and director Stéphanie Réthoré had strongly encouraged us to come back the following evening to hear Nathanaël Gouin again, and by himself this time, in a program that had to remain top secret within 100 km of La Roque d’Anthéron where he would play on Wednesday as part of its prestigious piano festival. I guess you know you have arrived when your contract has become overly finicky. 

But Réthoré had not been able to keep the secret, and Le Poët-Laval was beyond the limit anyway, not to mention that we would have showed up regardless of the playlist, my mom having become one of his biggest fans. So, we had bought our tickets early for what in the end was essentially the final rehearsal before La Roque d’Anthéron for this young and already much in-demand pianist, composer and teacher, who had made an excellent impression just 24 hours before. 

Additionally, having learned their lesson the hard way the previous evening, the event’s organizers had thankfully turned on the AC before our arrival in the Centre d’Art Contemporain Roche Colombe, and we were therefore able to come in and get settled in an acceptably cool space. In fact, the considerably more comfortable environment turned out to be a real blessing as the concert started almost 15 minutes late due to unstoppable waves of newcomers and a last-minute scramble to find extra seats. 

Unlike most opening numbers, which tend to be short and sweet, Gouin’s own transcription of Rachmaninoff’ Isle of the Dead was anything but. Inspired by a black and white version of Arnold Böcklin’s painting Isle of the Dead, the symphonic poem is unforgivingly dark and haunting. Having experienced unexpected and heart-breaking loss a decade ago, Gouin could probably relate all too well to the work’s delicate yet intense lyricism, and the eventual acceptance of grief and mourning. No doubt this was an unusually heavy, but also brave and impactful, way to get things going on an otherwise delightful summer night. 

Then we thankfully moved on to some of Rachmaninoff’s lighter fare with a handful of his Études-Tableaux, which Gouin had carefully picked and superbly played. Whether the vignette’s source of inspiration was a scene or an atmosphere, the score made sure to describe it with finesse and vivaciousness. During his introduction, the soft-spoken and engaging Gouin had deemed Rachmaninoff the greatest pianist ever, and this level of appreciation and kinship was certainly palpable in his deeply committed performance. 

Without an intermission, but after another insightful introduction, Gouin tackled Mussorgsky’s ever-popular Pictures at an Exhibition next, after having noticed that performing it in an art center filled with, well, pictures being exhibited had not been planned, but was clearly most appropriate. And while everybody stayed firmly put on their seats, we still thoroughly enjoyed Mussorgsky’s musical stroll through the exhibition of 10 works by Viktor Hartmann, a talented architect and visual artist who was friend with Mussorgsky and met an untimely death at only 39 years of age. 

Written within the year following the tragedy, the piano suite made of ten movements interspersed by the recurring and ever-changing promenade theme has undergone various orchestrations since then, the most famous probably being Ravel’s boldly colourful version, but to my ears, the power of the original is unmatched. And it sure sounded that way on Tuesday evening, as the pictures came wonderfully alive during Gouin’s superbly virtuosic without being unnecessarily flashy performance. 

The concert was a big success, and I was wondering what Gouin had in store for us for the highly anticipated encore, and especially if it would also come from the Russian repertoire. Well, not even close. As a special nod to the Olympic Games going on in Paris and to French culture in general, he concluded our enchanted evening with a dynamite take on Edith Piaf’s already infectious “Padam, padam…”, to which he managed to bring a brand new and oh so exciting flavor. Let’s face it, this young man has it all.

Les musicales du Poët-Laval - Mozart, Brahms, Halvorsen & Chausson - Trio Jacob and Friends - 07/29/24

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: String Quintet No. 4 in G Minor, K. 516 (First movement) 

Johannes Brahms: String Quintet No. 2 in G Major, Op. 111 (First movement) 

Johan Halvorsen: Passacaglia for Violin and Viola 

Ernest Chausson: Concerto for Violin, Piano and String Quartet in D Minor, Op. 21 

Charlotte Chahuneau: Violin 

Nathanaël Gouin: Piano 

Florian Holbé: Violin 

Raphaël Jacob: Violin 

Sarah Jacob: Cello 

Jérémy Pasquier: Viola 

Stéphanie Réthoré: Viola 

The Journées Musicales de Dieulefit and the Festival Mozart having come to an end for this year, the time had come to move on and indulge in new musical revelries, and fortunately enough, that’s just when Les musicales du Poët-Laval (The Musical Events of Le Poët-Laval) happened to be scheduled, as if to seamlessly take over fulfilling local music lovers’ insatiable needs with two exciting evenings for the 10th summer in a row. 

Therefore, last Monday evening, after a quiet and restorative weekend, my mom and I went to the nearby medieval hillside village of Le Poët-Laval, a rightful member of the Les Plus Beaux Villages de France (The most beautiful villages of France) association, whose miniature size is home to an impressively high number of historical and cultural treasures, from its predominant castle that regularly doubles as an exhibit space to various restaurants, boutiques and art galleries. 

And it was in fact in one of those, the Centre d’Art Contemporain Roche Colombe to be exact, that our next musical event was going to take place. The smallish but smartly designed three-level center boasts a cute outdoors theater with a panoramic view, an amazing modern Italian-made spiral staircase, and a tastefully eclectic and acoustically satisfactory performance space complete with its own majestic Steinway piano on the lower level. 

And all we had to do to get there was to complete the near-impossible mission consisting in finding an elusive spot in the parking lot packed with out-of-town license plates, and then venture down perilous cobbled pathways and stairs to find ourselves in the eventually packed and increasingly stuffy (I am talking about the air, not the people) room, where we were happy to bump into a couple of familiar faces from Dieulefit. 

Before the official program got underway, Stéphanie Réthoré, the founder and director of Les musicales du Poët-Laval, introduced the concert, and then surprised us with a heart-warming little treat that entailed cellist Sarah Jacob, one member of Trio Jacob, and her two young children performing one of Dmitri Shostakovich’s Five Pieces with laudable talent and dedication, assertively proving there might be a positive side to nepo babies after all. 

And then we kicked off the expected play list, starting with the first movement of Mozart’s String Quintet No. 4 in G Minor, one of his popular “viola quintets”, which pretty soon filled the entire space with beautiful melancholy. There is no doubt that having two violas stimulated Mozart’s creative juices even more than usual, and on Monday evening we all benefitted from the end result as we were basking in a remarkably wide range of sounds. When the too often neglected violas are played by experts such as Stéphanie Réthoré, a decidedly multi-talented woman, and Jérémy Pasquier, another member of Trio Jacob, the outcome could only be memorable, and it was. 

After Mozart’s elegant classicism, we were ready to indulge in lush romanticism with the first movement of Brahms’ String Quintet No. 2 in G Major, which was incidentally supposed to be his swan song but in the end was not. As unequivocally exhilarating and gorgeously melodic as could be hoped from a composer at the top of his game and musicians in full command of their craft, this Allegro non troppo, ma con brio reached for the sky, and effortlessly got there to stay. 

The sweltering heat and humidity becoming slowly but surely problematic for the audience, the musicians and, maybe even most importantly, the instruments, we took a very short break, and then turned our undivided attention to Norwegian composer, conductor, violinist and teacher Johan Halvorsen and his terrific extrapolation of Handel’s Passacaglia with violinist Florian Holbé and violist Jérémy Pasquier, whose blazingly virtuosic performance of it made us all temporarily forget our less than ideal environment and just marvel at their extraordinary tour de force. 

After having cooled off during the official intermission, at which point the AC was finally turned on, we all gathered together again for the program’s main piece, Chausson’s boldly rhapsodic Concerto for Violin, Piano and String Quartet in D Minor, an ambitious hybrid of concerto and chamber music full of inventiveness, grandeur and introspection, some brilliant interplay between the instruments, and a healthy dose of intense lyricism that would have made Brahms proud. 

On Monday evening, it did not take us long to notice that while violin and piano are equal partners on paper, the former was by all accounts physically and musically center stage, its gorgeous soaring lines frequently underlined by intricate arpeggios from unassuming piano rising star Nathanaël Gouin, who was almost unnoticeable, but certainly not unnoticed, behind the fired-up string ensemble. That said, when the violin is played by Raphaël Jacob, the last but not least member of Trio Jacob and Sarah’s brother, all one can do is shut up and enjoy it until the very last note. And that’s just what we did. 

Although the ovation was huge, the mild but nevertheless better-than-nothing AC having done wonders for everybody’s energy level, there was no encore, probably because the hour was getting late, the air was still uncomfortably sticky, and we had gotten an unexpected little extra at the beginning of the concert. 

Stéphanie Réthoré appeared on the stage again though, first to invite us to come back on Tuesday for a recital by the very same Nathanaël Gouin we had just heard, and also to let us know that the art center being for sale, this year may be the last year of Les musicales du Poët-Laval. So it was with fingers solidly crossed for a better denouement on one hand and a steady flash light turned on to show us the way in the other hand that we negotiated the even more perilous cobbled pathways and stairs in the now pitch dark village.

Festival Mozart - Mozart/Michael Haydn & Franz Joseph Haydn - 07/19/24

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart/Michael Haydn: Symphony No. 37 in G Major 

Franz Joseph Haydn: Cello Concerto No.1 in C Major, Hob.VIIb:1 

Franz Joseph Haydn: Symphony No. 6 in D Major (Morning) 

Orchestre des Pays de Savoie 

Pieter-Jelle de Boer: Conductor 

Astrig Siranossian: Cello 

Back when they were writing the concerts’ programs, the Association Saoû Chante Mozart (Saoû Chante Mozart) may have lacked a vivid imagination—or a broad vocabulary—when, after qualifying Robert Schumann’s Piano Quintet in E-Flat Major of “sublime”, they used the exact same superlative to describe Franz Joseph Haydn’s Cello Concerto No. 1, which was also part of the Festival Mozart. But then again, anybody even remotely familiar with those two works would be hard-pressed to disagree. 

So my mom and I did what any right-minded music lover would have done and got tickets to the Friday evening concert in the 12th-century Collégiale Sainte-Croix de Montélimar, the local urban hub closest to us. And since we made it to our destination way too early (Anybody who thinks of me as obsessively punctual has obviously not met my mom), we took a very pleasant walk around the small pedestrian historic center while waiting to take shelter from the heat inside the rather austere but incontestably beautiful collegiate church. 

After the de rigueur opening speeches, it seemed appropriate to have a work by Mozart kick things off, the festival bearing his name and all, but his Symphony No. 37 in G Major came with an interesting twist as it turned out it had in fact been originally composed by Michael Haydn, the younger brother of Franz Joseph Haydn, as Symphony No. 25 in G Major, Mozart contributing no more than a brief introduction and a slightly altered instrumentation (Hey, the guy was on a tight deadline and occasionally came through for his buddy Michael as well). And apparently nobody was the wiser until over a century later. 

Thing is, in the ultra-capable hands of the vivacious Orchestre des Pays de Savoie led by their Dutch music director, as well as pianist, organist and conductor, Pieter-Jelle de Boer, the music appeared solidly planted in Viennese tradition, and while it did sound at times a bit simplistic for having come out of one of the most sophisticated musical minds of all times, it was also kind of easy to pinpoint the barely noticeable difference when one knew the piece’s background. In the end, regardless of its genesis, the symphony was a lovely treat. 

But let’s face it. We were all there for Haydn’s Cello Concerto No.1, especially since it would be performed by Astrig Siranossian, a local rising star whose appearance in a free-flowing canary yellow gown and sparkly shoes, not to mention a cheerful disposition, felt like the sudden arrival of pure sunshine into the grand church. That said, visuals are not everything, but as soon as she began to play, we all realized that she also had impressive musical chops. 

Haydn’s joyful Cello Concerto No.1 is awfully easy to love, with its old-fashioned charm punctuated by graceful melodies and understated witticisms. It definitely sounded like Siranossian and the orchestra were having a lot of fun with it, and consequently so did we. Our only quibble was that the acoustics of the space did not always allow the cello to stand out much, but I may have my mom and her insistence to sit as near the front as possible to blame for that. Oh, and the random bursts of applause during the performance were kind of distracting too, but it is hard to fault people for appreciating good music when they hear it. 

Our musical experience was markedly improved when the whole orchestra enthusiastically launched into Haydn’s Symphony No. 6, another finely crafted and all-around lively composition that he wrote for his new employer, the all-powerful Hungarian prince Esterhazy, who provided Haydn with ample support, even his own orchestra. And since the work’s first movement began with a slow and mesmerizing description of sunrise, it was quickly nicknamed “Morning”. 

Besides its natural attractiveness, the symphony is also popular with musicians and listeners because it allows quite a few instruments to shine on their own thanks to ingeniously conceived and adroitly incorporated solos, the lucky few including the elegant first violin, the assertive horns, the agile flute and the sharp bassoon. And shine they all did on Friday evening, and so did the entire orchestra. We had a very bright “Morning” last Friday evening, and we enjoyed it to the fullest. 

Once the official program over, in an unusual move, Pieter-Jelle de Boer took centre stage and made an emotional plea for help on behalf of the Orchestre des Pays de Savoie, the valuable ensemble having recently heard that the Savoie region had decided to withdraw its financial contribution starting 2025, effectively killing one of its main lifelines. A petition and fund-raising effort are underway, and one can only hope that the orchestra will still be around for many more mornings. 

But then, we simply could not part on this doom and gloom note. 

The overly demonstrative audience members who had been shushed into contrition during the cello concerto apparently had not been willing to take another chance, and the legitimate applause from the rest of us at the end of the performance had not been quite extended enough to earn us an encore. But we thankfully still got it in the end, when Siranossian came back and proved that she was not only a superb musician, but an accomplished singer as well, with the quietly moving traditional Armenian song “Sareri Hovin Mernem”. And then we headed off into the cooler Montélimar evening to go back to even cooler Dieulefit.

Journées Musicales de Dieulefit - All-Schubert - 07/18/24

Franz Schubert: String Trio D. 471 

Franz Schubert: String Quintet in C Major (D. 956) 

Lara Dormeau: Violin 

Rachel Koblyakov: Violin 

David Louwerse: Cello 

Jennifer Rio: Viola 

Manfred Stilz: Cello 

Another summer evening in Dieulefit, another chamber music concert in the lovely Église Saint-Pierre as part of the Journées Musicales de Dieulefit (Musical Days of Dieulefit), and not just any concert either, as last Thursday’s performance concluded the concert series itself with a bona fide masterpiece. For the occasion, François Daudet was taking the evening off as a pianist, but not as artistic director, in which capacity he was welcoming a bunch of carefully selected friends and colleagues to make sure that the music would go on. 

Fact is, the list was as impressive as eclectic, with cellist David Louwerse, who needs no introduction to Journées Musicales de Dieulefit’s regulars, globe-trotting German cellist, flutist and teacher Manfred Stilz, French violinist, violist and long-time teacher Jennifer Rio, American-born and French-residing violinist Rachel Koblyakov, and Dieulefit-born and raised, and by far the most junior member of the ensemble, violinist Lara Dormeau. 

Therefore, it was with extremely high confidence that my mom and I went back to downtown Dieulefit after a thankfully much less hectic afternoon than the day before and took our seats, in the surprise company of our neighbours Setha and Philippe behind us, and the probably less surprise company of Dieulefit’s mayor in a nearby section, for one of chamber music’s most towering achievements in Franz Schubert’s awe-inspiring String Quintet in C Major (Yes, the one with the two cellos). 

Before we got to indulge in the program’s big draw though, our appetites were pleasantly whetted with another work by Schubert that, for all its less ambitious scope and unusual combination of violin, viola, and cello, was a totally appropriate opener to the bigger and better thing to come. In fact, as performed by Koblyakov, Rio and Stilz, the one movement constituting the String Trio D. 471 was so refined and light on its feet that it immediately recalled Mozart himself at his very best, which was very good indeed. 

And then, after our delightful appetizer, we all eagerly moved on to the almost one-hour main course that is Schubert’s “Cello Quintet,” the stunning study in sunny euphoria and dark torment that he completed only two months before his untimely death at 31, and which astonishingly enough was not published until 25 years later. Since then, it has quickly made up for lost time, and is now rightfully one of the most admired and popular pieces of the repertoire. 

Thursday night was no exception, as the capacity crowd got to enjoy a deeply heart-felt performance of the epic quintet thanks to the combined talents and palpable camaraderie happening on the stage, where all five musicians remained remarkably focused and collaborative. As predicted, the undisputed highlight was the transcendental, exquisitely contrasted Adagio, a not so common occurrence in Schubert’s œuvre to begin with, which gorgeously blossomed in all its romantic glory, stunning everybody into respectful and grateful silent. 

Sooooooooooo, what do you play after Schubert’s Cello Quintet? Well, you play it again, of course. Not the whole thing maybe, although I can’t imagine anybody in the audience objecting. In the end, another round of the first section of the refreshingly earthy Scherzo ended up being the perfect choice for audience and ensemble, concluding this last concert of the year with a resoundingly thrilling bang.

Journées Musicales de Dieulefit - All-Schubert - 07/17/24

Franz Schubert: Sonata for Arpeggione and Piano in A Minor, D. 821 

Franz Schubert: Trio No. 1 in B-Flat Major for Piano, Violin, and Cello, D. 898 (Opus 99) 

François Daudet: Piano 

David Louwerse: Cello 

Virginie Robilliard: Violin 

After having gone to relatively great geographical lengths to attend totally worthy live music experiences lately, this week we’ve stayed for the most part put in Dieulefit itself, where the 20th anniversary of the Journées musicales de Dieulefit (Musical Days of Dieulefit) as well as the closing performance of the Saoû Chante Mozart (Saoû Sings Mozart) festival will keep classical music lovers busy. So much music, so little time (sigh). 

Therefore, on Wednesday evening, after a five-hour round-trip to Lyon in the afternoon to bring our friend Vittorio to the Saint-Exupery Airport, and a quick stop at home for a quick bite and a quick rest, we went to the attractive Église Saint-Pierre in downtown Dieulefit, where the Association Chemins de Pierre was kicking off the first leg of a two-day Schubert marathon courtesy of the highly popular usual suspects. That was actually one of those few occasions where I am actually grateful for the otherwise ungodly starting time of 9:00 PM. 

The performance started with Schubert’s Arpeggione Sonata, a rather unique effort as it has remained the only substantial work originally composed for the arpeggione (essentially a guitar with a curved bridge similar to the bass viola da gamba), one year after its invention. The new instrument having never gained much traction among musicians, it is now routinely replaced by the cello, and occasionally the viola or the guitar. 

On Wednesday evening, we were all particularly grateful that the cello took over the arpeggione as it gave us the opportunity to hear cellist extraordinaire David Louwerse brilliantly nail the sonata-provided star turn, with a little help from his long-time buddy, outstanding pianist in his own right and the Journées musicales’ intrepid music director François Daudet. In the end, it felt just like overhearing an intimate conversation filled with poignant stories and a few moments of passionate eloquence between two close friends, and not being able to step away. 

They say that no woman should ever come between two male friends, and that may very well be true in general, but in the context of the Journées musicales de Dieulefit, a program featuring Daudet and Louwerse is not really complete without the presence of prodigious violinist Virginie Robilliard, who clearly proved this point again on Wednesday evening by fitting in effortlessly between the two guys for Schubert’s superb Trio Opus 99, which incidentally seemed kind of a logical step back after their memorable performance of the Opus 100 last year. 

The Allegro moderato was lively and engaging, instantly confirming that their long-standing chemistry was still operating seamlessly, while the Andante un poco mosso readily stood out with its soaring lyricism from violin and cello, and bright piano accompaniment. The Scherzo exuded happy-go-lucky cheerfulness galore, before the Finale wrapped up the virtuosic tour de force with a dynamite bouquet of fireworks. So good to see (and hear) them again. 

As for the encore, we moved away from the present and back to last year with the slow movement of Felix Mendelssohn's Piano Trio No. 1, which Daudet dedicated not only to Menahem Pressler, his late beloved teacher, but also to two huge local forces when it came to the Journées musicales de Dieulefit, namely Sonia Morin, their founder, and her husband Jean Morin, their honorary president, who both left us recently, and who must have been smiling from wherever they are now.

Le petit palais de Chaillot - Rebecca Chaillot - Bach, Chopin, Ravel & Prokofiev - 07/12/24

Johann Sebastian Bach: Goldberg Variations, BWV 988 (Variations 1-10 and Aria da capo) 

Frédéric Chopin: Waltz in D-Flat Major, Op. 64, No. 1 (Valse minute, or valse du petit chien [Minute Waltz, or Waltz of the Little Dog]) 

Frédéric Chopin: Nocturne No. 20 in C-Sharp Minor 

Maurice Ravel: Ondine from Gaspard de la nuit : Trois poèmes pour piano d’après Aloysius Bertrand 

Sergei Prokofiev: Dance of the Knights (Montagues and Capulets) from Romeo and Juliet 

Frédéric Chopin: Ballade No. 4 in F Minor, Op. 52 

Rebecca Chaillot: Pianist 

After a promising kick-off of my summer 2025 musical season with the Saoû Chante Mozart festival and Schumann a little while ago, and some fun times going back to beloved familiar places and discovering new ones in the Dieulefit area, I turned my attention to a fairly recent and extremely exciting local source of high-quality live music, which my mom discovered last year and has been looking forward to sharing with me ever since. 

About six years ago, eminent pianist, among many other hats, Rebecca Chaillot decided to put down some roots in the tiny village of Colonzelle, where she restored a decrepit but spacious stone house for herself and her four pianos, and the “petit palais de Chaillot” was born. Even better, it soon became home to intimate pay-what-you-can concerts in the upstairs concert room or the courtyard, depending on the weather, for the lucky few in the know. 

While perusing the message Chaillot had sent to her email distribution list earlier last week, I spotted the Thursday’s and Friday’s program, which was a piano recital including works by Bach, Chopin and Ravel performed by the woman herself, so on Friday, my mom and I grabbed our still visiting friend Vittorio and headed to Colonzelle for the 7:00 PM starting time, just as some strong winds were serendipitously chasing away some threatening clouds. 

Lo and behold, at some point we faced the same hurdle as we did during our trip to our last concert, which was a closed street and no clear alternative, due to an overturned truck this time. Undeterred, we quickly found our way around, catching a glimpse of the historic tower of Chamaret in the process, and finally settled in the cool in so many ways courtyard, where our goings-on were carefully supervised by the friendly tabby and white house cat. 

Eventually, Rebecca Caillot, the lady of the house and our entertainer for the evening, welcomed us and introduced the first piece, Bach’s legendary Goldberg Variations, specifying that the entire set lasting about one and a half hour, she would play the first ten variations, and then the final Aria da capo. She also warned us that the bells of the church next door would temporarily be joining her at 7:10 PM, just as they unceremoniously informed us that it was 7:00 PM. 

And so it went. Right as we were happily getting in the mood of Bach’s prodigiously exacting intricacies, the faithful were called loudly and extensively for the Vespers while Chaillot kept cool and carried on. And then we were fully back to Bach again, except for the very few cars zooming by outside the distant entrance gates, a slight frustration that could easily be ignored once the magic of the music operated at full power. 

Then we left German Baroque to go bask in French Romanticism with two popular hits by Chopin, starting with the “Valse minute” (Minute Waltz), also known as “Valse du petit chien” (Waltz of the Little Dog), which was reputedly inspired by Chopin’s famous paramour George Sand’s dog Marquis, whom he apparently loved at least as much as his owner. Short and sweet, this delightful little vignette further lifted everybody’s spirits. 

The second Chopin classic was his beloved Nocturne No. 20 in C-Sharp Minor, which he composed at the astonishingly young age of 18 as he was quickly and hopelessly falling in love with a fellow student at the music academy that is now called the Chopin University of Music in Warsaw. And in fact, there was no denying the depth and intensity of his feelings as we were listening to their exquisite description with abated breath. 

We stayed in France but moved on in time with Ravel’s Gaspard de la nuit, and more particularly “Ondine”, a not so well-known work inspired by Aloysius Bertrand’s poem dedicated to a half-angel half-demon water nymph who is trying to seduce the listener and take him to her kingdom at the bottom of a lake. An exceptionally captivating composition in its enchanting evocation of shimmering water and subtle seduction, it is also a notoriously challenging obstacle course even for the most accomplished pianists. Luckily, we just had the right virtuoso for the job on Friday evening, and our underwater journey went, well, swimmingly. 

Unannounced on the published program, the following piece was for me the instant highlight of the concert, not only because I’ve always had a soft spot for the iconic “Dance of the Knights” from Prokofiev’s Romeo and Juliet, a relentlessly dynamite ballet score composed by a Russian about an Italian story written by an Englishman, but also because hearing the drastically stripped down but still tremendously eloquent version for piano we were served on Friday evening (Isn’t that deliciously ominous pulsating brass theme the most badass earworm ever?) was a total blast. 

We lastly went back to Chopin with his Ballade No. 4, his longest and, arguably, his most technically difficult and most emotionally rewarding. Unless the other three, which unfold in an essentially straightforward fashion, the fourth has a more complex structure, which he deftly infused with just the right amount of poetry and lyricism. Chaillot clearly understood all that and took us through Chopin’s brilliant take on life with much proficiency, dedication and gusto, wrapping our wonderful music-filled hour with a truly memorable party favor.

Festival Mozart - Quatuor Psophos & Ismaël Margain - Schubert, Mozart & Schumann - 07/07/24

Franz Schubert: Quartettsatz D. 703 

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: Violin Sonata No. 27 in G Major (K. 379/373a) 

Robert Schumann: The Piano Quintet in E-Flat Major, Op. 44 

Quatuor Psophos 

Ismaël Margain: Piano 

After a relatively short but eventful trip that included an extra-long train ride, a couple of enjoyable days in Turin, a long but eventless bus ride, and an art- and gastronomy-filled stay in Aix-en-Provence, my temporarily ailing friend Vittorio, my mom and I finally arrived in Dieulefit, where summer invariably brings a lot of exciting activities. And I am not talking about helping her drastically downsize from her big and unbelievably cluttered house to the well-located, cool little apartment she had finally landed. 

One of those most beloved traditions is no doubt the Festival Mozart (formerly known as Saoû Chante Mozart) festival, which has been filling up the miniature village of Saoû as well as its surrounding communities with classical music concerts performed by very promising as well as well-established musicians for the past 34 years and counting. Undaunted by its ever-increasing success, it has only been getting bigger and better while resolutely keeping its local spirit. 

And that’s how last Sunday evening, after a busy morning spent catching up with a couple of friends at Dieulefit’s election poll site and checking out a nearby café under new management, the three of us found ourselves in the beautiful cloister of nearby Bonlieu-sur-Roubion’s Basilique Sainte-Anne, a brand new festival location, for a chamber music concert featuring Schubert, Mozart and Schumann performed by young but already highly praised Quatuor Psophos, whose ambitious Greek name evokes no less than the essence of sound, and pianist Ismaël Margain. 

After facing the big surprise of a closed street and no alternative in sight while on the road, and the even bigger surprise of the elections results while waiting for the concert to start in the truly enchanting venue, we readily focused our attention on enjoying the perfect summer evening, starting with Schubert’s 10-minute Quartettsatz. Nobody knows why the composer left that planned string quartet unfinished, but the impeccably self-contained, Beethoven-flavored Allegro assai can easily stand on its own, as it was categorically proven to us on Sunday evening, never mind the strident alarm of a smartphone followed by a dreadful coughing fit behind me just as the party was getting going. 

Although it has diversified its offerings over the years, the Festival Mozart festival thankfully still includes plenty of works from Mozart’s extraordinary œuvre. Our piece du jour was the lovely Violin Sonata No. 27, which was expertly handled by the Quatuor Psophos’ violinist Mathilde Borsarello Herrmann and pianist Ismaël Margain, as well as an unseen but definitely heard unidentified bird. The two musicians had a wonderful chemistry, but the uninvited feathered guest did not manage to fit in and quickly gave up. Nice try though. 

The ads for the program highlighted Schumann’s “sublime” Piano Quintet in E-Flat Major, and one could hardly object to the description, especially as we were happily basking in it. One of Schumann’s boldest and finest large-scale chamber works, it was dedicated to his brilliant pianist wife, Clara Schumann,who handled the first public performance, the first private performance having been handled a month earlier by Mendelssohn, who had stepped in when she had fallen ill. With friends like that… Predictably, it quickly turned into the landmark of the genre that it still is today. 

Even though at 9:00 PM the church bells decided to let us know in no uncertain terms that it was, well, 9:00 PM during the second and, according to me at least, most sublime movement (Who knew that a church bell tolling nine times would take that long?), the five musicians soldiered on undeterred, graciously acknowledging the predictable applause at the end of the third movement, before triumphantly making it through the fourth and final one. 

In fact, the Schumann quintet was such a resounding success that they obligingly played two excerpts of it as encores. Because one can never have too much of a good thing.

Teatro San Carlo - Tchaikovsky & Beethoven- 06/22/24

Piotr Tchaikovsky: Violin Concerto in D Major, Op. 35 

Ludwig van Beethoven: Symphony No. 4 in B-Flat Major, Op. 60 

Conductor: Dmitry Matvienko 

Violin: Sergej Krylov 

Although my most recent visit to Naples’ Teatro San Carlo had been unusual in many unexpected ways last month, I nevertheless decided to get right back on the horse with one more performance before heading up North for the summer (Considering that the thermometer repeatedly hit 35 degrees Celsius last week, it definitely seems that like the only way to survive the next few months is up). 

My main motivation for this last concert in the Parthenopean City was the presence of Greek violinist extraordinaire Leonidas Kavakos, who would tackle, among other delectable treats, Maurice Ravel’s dazzling Tzigane. I have been fortunate enough to get to enjoy his ravishing talent countless times in the past couple of decades, and I was very much looking forward to hearing him again, this time with my friend Vittorio in the San Carlo’s stupendous setting. 

That's why I could not but feel awfully let down when, last Friday afternoon, I received an email from the venue informing me that the star of the show would regretfully not be there the following evening for health reasons (And to think I was willing to put up with Saturday night’s crowds for him!), and that Russian and Italian violinist and conductor Sergej Krylov would be filling in with Tchaikovsky’s perennially compelling violin concerto. 

So, after a labor-intensive day, a long wait for the subway train, an uninspired sfogiatella, and a message from Vittorio informing me that he would be late from visiting his brother in the hospital, I took my seat in the third row of the orchestra section (One cannot be too picky with half-price tickets) of the crowded theater dearly hoping for a much-needed little pick-me-up. 

And then, lo and behold, the Orchestra del San Carlo and Sergej Krylov totally came through for me. Sure, I was still reeling about Kavakos’ absence, but I also had to admit that international music man Sergej Krylov, who was born in Moscow, studied in Cremona, and these days wears the two hats of music director of the Lithuanian Chamber Orchestra and professor at the Lugano Conservatory, not to mention a bit of moonlighting on the side, was an exciting discovery. 

Although I typically think that I do not really need to hear the Tchaikovsky violin concerto yet one more time, every time I come across it, I am still immediately pulled into its captivating beauty, intense romanticism and infectious exuberance, from its deceptively understated opening notes to its unabashedly explosive fireworks. It is truly a gift that keeps on giving. In my experience, it is the only work that never fails to prompt spontaneous clapping after the brilliantly convoluted first movement, and in this case, I must confess that I almost consider it justified. 

Sunday’s performance was no exception, and the vigorous applause was gamely acknowledged by the performers. Fact is, there was much to be appreciative for, including the passionate lyricism and intricate details that Krylov brought out of the composition with the ease and commitment of the child prodigy that he once was. The orchestra dutifully kept up pace under the baton of young but highly determined Dmitry Matvienko, who completed a memorable composer-soloist-maestro trio that convincingly reminded us of all the good that can come out of Russia. 

The audience having broken into a deafening ovation, Krylov came back with another sure-fire crowd-pleaser in Paganini’s irresistible Capriccio No. 24. And, let’s face it, while the Tchaikovsky had been a resounding success, the relentlessly virtuosic ride that was the Paganini ended up being an even more thrilling experience. Seriously. And we were not done, as Krylov came back for one more party favor, unknown and more subdued, that gently brought us all back to reality. 

After intermission and the arrival of Vittorio, who fortunately had only missed the first few minutes of the Tchaikovsky concerto, we happily moved on to Beethoven’s Symphony No. 4. Book-ended by his popular third symphony, the mighty Eroica, and his even more popular fifth symphony, the one opening with the famous pom-pom-pom-pom earworm, the fourth one does not always get all the attention that it deserves, and it deserves plenty indeed, as was clearly pointed out to us on Saturday evening. 

Although it contains its fair share of creativity and complexity, the rather traditional composition mostly stands out for showing Beethoven at his most sunny and cheerful, not unlike the city of Naples, where we were all wrapping up our first summer weekend with, in fact, abundant sunshine and, as it were, a healthy dose of Tchaikovsky-induced cheerfulness. 

And what if this lighter fare neither broke any new ground nor made any strong statement? As performed by the knowledgeable and enthusiastic orchestra last Saturday, it brought pure, unadulterated joy to the entire audience, especially when a few zealous concert etiquette gatekeepers detected tentative applause after the first movement and quickly nipped it in the bud, providing the rest of us with a smooth and satisfying end to the concert and, incidentally, to my 2023-24 music season.

Teatro San Carlo - Bluebeard’s Castle & La voix humaine - 05/26/24

Bluebeard’s Castle 

Composer: Bela Bartok 

Librettist: Bela Balazs 

Conductor: Edward Gardner 

Producer/Director: Krzysztof Warlikowski 

Elina Garanca: Judith 

John Relya: Duke Bluebeard

La voix humaine 

Composer: Francis Poulenc 

Librettist: Jean Cocteau 

Conductor: Edward Gardner 

Producer/Director: Krzysztof Warlikowski 

Barbara Hannigan: Elle

As my extended residency in Naples is unfolding nicely with plenty of business and pleasure, including a mild but discernible earthquake right before my otherwise quiet birthday to keep things exciting, it was also further enhanced by the temporary presence of my host Vittorio’s French cousin, who, rather implausibly, had turned out to be a former summertime neighbor of my mom’s (We do live in a small world, after all). 

Being another dedicated opera buff, Michèle had strategically planned her visit according to the Teatro San Carlo’s opera season, where we had found an intriguing double bill consisting of Bela Bartok’s Bluebeard’s Castle, starring the ever-fabulous Latvian mezzo-soprano Elina Garanca and Canadian-American bass John Relya, and Francis Poulenc’s La voix humaine, starring the ever-versatile Canadian soprano and conductor Barbara Hannigan. 

So, a couple of weeks ago, on a beautiful Sunday afternoon, after having fully enjoyed the traditional buffet of art & history at the stupendous Certosa di San Marino, a culinary feast featuring Vittorio’s priceless asparagus risotto, and a de rigueur stop at the nearby Gambrinus Caffè, we found ourselves in front of a surprisingly deserted opera house. That’s when I realized that I had misread the starting time as 5:30 PM when it was actually 5:00 PM, and my heart precipitously dropped. 

We were fortunately only five minutes late, and the San Carlo, one of the few unfailingly punctual institutions in Naples, is thankfully understanding and flexible when it comes to late comers. Therefore, after a mad dash up a couple of flights of stairs, an usher took us kindly and efficiently into a pitch dark, unexpectedly large and practically empty box, instructing us to go all the way to the first row, which we did as swiftly and discreetly as possible. 

The good news was we had missed just a few minutes of the performance, and none of the opera itself. The bad news was, as soon as the music started, a low humming noise coming from the projector located in the box next to my seat could be heard as well. The situation was partially improved when I moved slightly back, but never completely resolved since there was no intermission, and therefore no opportunity for me to change seats. But then again, (late-arriving) beggars cannot be choosers. 

I had had my first and only brush with Bluebeard’s Castle in, appropriately enough, Budapest many years ago, but my memory of it was rather faint. And missing part of the elaborate introduction (Was it a real dove we saw flying off???) on Sunday did not help put things together. But the main premise of Charles Perrault’s original folktale is not that complicated, and I quickly settled in. As for La voix humaine, I was in an even direst situation since I had only heard of it, never actually heard it, but I had full confidence in the reliable talents of Jean Cocteau and Francis Poulenc. 

One thing was for sure though, I was thrilled at the thought of experiencing Elina Garanca’s magic again, especially in such a fascinating role. And here she was, a naturally magnetic presence that was for the occasion wearing a green sheath dress, a white coat and a pair of red shoes (Could she get more Italian?), with a voice that was as sharp and intense, and consistently elegant, as I remembered it from my Met days. 

Her Judith was the expected endearingly curious young bride, but also oozed a heady combination of poised sensuality, growing anxiety and staunch determination that (Spoiler alert!) will not work out so well for her in the end. She clearly should have been more careful what she wished for, but her increasingly treacherous path to get to the hard truth led to an undeniably spectacular musical tour de force that we all fully relished, so no complaints there. 

As Duke Bluebeard, Judith’s endlessly mysterious cloak-clad husband, John Relyea did wonders with his impressive, and deliciously ominous, dark palette. A die-hard misogynist of the brooding kind in word and deed, who looked and sounded both at odds and in awe of his endlessly inquisitive new consort, he fought long and hard to keep her from his unforbidden secret. But he eventually had to give in and come clean, and still won in the end, toxic masculinity oblige, even if his victory was by all accounts depressingly joyless. 

If I had not known that this 2015 production by eminent Polish director Krzysztof Warlikowski had been co-commissioned by the Opéra de Paris and the Teatro Real in Madrid, I would have automatically assumed that it had come straight from Berlin as the set had the kind of slick and cold aesthetic that can be found on many European opera stages these days. That said, I’ll be the first to admit that this resolutely minimalist approach created an eerie atmosphere full of engrossing suspense and unspoken horror that worked really well for the story. 

The almost bare stage, except for a bar (on which were placed an important bottle of whiskey and an even more important phone) and a sofa, would eventually be partially occupied by seven floor-to-ceiling glass cases containing admittedly stylish but rather gory symbols of what was lying behind each of the seven infamous (and, in this case, invisible) doors. We’re talking about things like a bathtub covered in blood-red satin for the torture chamber, a weapons collector’s kit for the duke’s man cave, orchids for the garden, and a black and white TV for the kingdom. Inventive, but not too much.

I definitely could have done without the performers sitting in the audience before coming on the stage or the black and white video in the background (Haven’t those tricks been used enough already?). Repeated close-ups of a young girl’s face quickly got old, especially after she also appeared on the stage with a snow globe (a link to the opening magician?). On the other hand, I unreservedly approve the excerpts of Jean Cocteau’s legendary 1946 film La belle et la bête, which provided a particularly clever way to introduce Jean Cocteau’s and Francis Poulenc’s La voix humaine. 

Beside the cinematographic element, the transition was also built around the arrival of Barbara Hannigan, the star of the upcoming 40-minute one-woman show, out of breath and with a gun in her hand, as Bluebeard’s wives were unhurriedly exiting the stage. And just like that, she transported us smoothly into another place and time, in which reigned another musical style and another language, where the same kind of complicated human emotions were filling up the air. So many highly strung women, so little time. 

As Elle, the lonely bourgeois woman with the smart business suit and the impossibly long silky hair that is apparently all the rage in Naples these days (I still have to figure out why girls around here are so obsessed with the Kardashians’ looks) having one last heartbreaking, and frequently interrupted, telephone conversation with her lover, Hannigan spared no efforts to convey vulnerability, longing, and despair as she slowly but surely unraveled in real time before our eyes. 

Blessed with an incredibly wide vocal range that she continuously deployed to express her character’s erratic emotional journey, she also managed to pull off an extremely—I am tempted to say, excessively—physical performance that left many of us exhausted. Next to her non-stop agitation, the docile dog sharing the stage with her was the picture of Zen, and her wounded ex-beau not much more than an after-thought. 

Each of the back-to-back performances mightily benefited from their own scores, which were both completely unique and yet oddly similar in their appealing lyricism and unyielding tension, Bartok’s a seductively oppressive take on the ancient fairy tale, Poulenc’s an exquisitely frazzled accompaniment to a tragic modern monologue. Edward Gardner, who knows a thing or two about opera after his successful stint as music director of the English National Opera from 2007 to 2015, showed a deep respect and profound sensitivity towards the music and the performers, treating us to a totally rewarding musical experience while keeping us at the edge of our seats. 

Once the show was over, it turned out that the San Carlo had one last surprise in store for us. As soon as the lights came on, my companions and I realized that we had ended up in the San Carlo’s ultra-fancy royal box, which in retrospect explained the extra space and the priceless view. Needless to say, I immediately felt under-dressed, but then decided to make up for it with a slightly blasé attitude as we basked in our surreal surroundings for a few minutes, before coolly making our way through the horde of the less fortunate gathered outside trying to take a peek at the splendor reserved for the mighty. 

My friends completely absolved me for inadvertently making us late since I had given them something to write home about, and I half-forgave the San Carlo for putting me in a spot that, no matter how prestigious it was, came with an unwelcome soundtrack. Turned out that our legitimate box was, as had been planned when I bought the tickets, the one that was exceptionally occupied by the humming projector next door. Only in Naples.

Concerti in Floridiana - Four Seasons Four Hands - 05/12/24

Yoshinao Nakada: The Four Seasons of Japan 

Astor Piazzolla: The Four Seasons of Buenos Aires (arranged by Kyoko Yamamoto) 

Sugiko Chinen: Piano 

Luca Arnaldo Maria Colombo: Piano 

After having settled comfortably into my house-sitting gig in Naples’ semi-upscale neighborhood of Arenella, I have been looking for ways to make my stay in the Parthenopean city even more special, beside further exploring the sprawling metropolis (Mergenella has been captivating my attention lately), indulging in the stupendous cuisine (If I look and act like a sfogiatella addict, it is because I am), and making new local friends (Salve Carmen!). 

And then, last week I had the bright idea to check the schedule of the concert series taking place in the neat Museo Duca di Martina of the lovely Villa Floridiana, my favorite spot for bonding not only with nature, but with the numerous cats living there as well, in the totally upscale neighborhood of the Vomero. Turned out that the next and last concert of the season was going to be an intriguing Japanese and Argentinian four-hand recital at the totally civilized hour of 11:30 AM the following Sunday. 

After reserving one seat by email and, lo and behold, not hearing back, I still decided to take a chance and go, figuring that I could always content myself with the park, its panoramic views, and its debonair furry residents if the ticket didn’t materialize. Last Sunday being Mothers’ Day in Italy, I had giddily sent my mom a special message at the crack of dawn to make sure she would have a nice surprise as soon as she turned on her phone. And surprised she was indeed, since I was two weeks early for the French Mother’s Day. Oh well. 

I eventually made it to Villa Floridiana, passing by a gazillion flower street vendors who had sprung up all over the neighborhood for the occasion, and once I got to the museum, lo and behold, there was no record of my reservation. But after I showed them proof and they did a bit of shuffling, I was handed a ticket and took a seat in the small, long and bare eggshell-and-ice blue room that quickly filled up to capacity. 

 The two musicians, Sugiko Chinen from Japan and Luca Arnaldo Maria Colombo from Italy, have worked as a musical duo for almost three decades, apparently making the most of their unusual but evidently winning combination. After having mastered the more traditional four-hands repertoire, they’re now focusing on more contemporary and exotic fare, which explains the genesis of last Sunday’s program “Four Hands Four Seasons.” 

The performance started with the more mysterious work of the day, Yoshinao Nakada’s The Four Seasons of Japan, which, oddly enough, consisted of six movements. Starting with spring, the music wasted no time celebrating nature’s renewal by joyfully conveying countless cherry blossoms popping up all over the place, before moving on to marveling at the bright sky of May, which we actually could almost see through the museum’s windows, and the majestic Mount Fuji, which we obviously could not. Long rainy days brought a bit of melancholia, and a dazzling evocation of rain drops galore. 

Summer, fall and winter may have been more succinctly described, but they were no less powerfully expressive and beautifully brought to life, all the way to winter’s falling snow and surrounding ice. Considering how many years they have been playing together, it came as no big shock that Colombo and Chinen immediately fell into an impeccably synchronized partnership, perfectly complementing each other without losing their own personality and mission. 

From Japan we moved right on to Argentina with Astor Piazzolla’s The Four Seasons of Buenos Aires, a four-movement piece originally composed for a quintet featuring an electric guitar and a bandoneon, and later arranged several times for different instrumentations, including a four-hands version by Japanese pianist Kyoko Yamamoto. How about that for a smooth transition? And the transition was in fact very smooth despite the contrasting nature of the two works, Colombo and Chinen handling Piazzola’s sexy tango-infused rhythms just as well as they did Nakada’s more restrained sensibility. 

They had decided to start with fall so that the Southern hemisphere would not feel left out, and the audience was more than happy to follow them in this exciting adventure that sounded at the same time freely improvised and tightly controlled, and a lot of infectious fun was had by all. Even the grumpy-looking older lady a couple of seats to my right, who had been repeatedly making and unmaking a paper boat with her program sheet, felt compelled to stop and pay attention, and so did the elderly gentleman to my left, whose sporadic fidgeting came to a complete halt. Now that’s power. 

After much applause from the extremely enthusiastic crowd, the duo chose a typical Neapolitan treat courtesy of a Russian composer, pianist, and conductor as an encore: The Tarantella in G Minor by Nikolai Rubinstein, which they dedicated to all the mothers in the room and beyond, and which concluded this wonderful musical aperitivo with plenty of virtuosic fireworks.

Alexandre Kantorow - Brahms, Liszt, Bartok & Rachmaninoff - 04/10/24

Johannes Brahms: Rhapsody in B Minor, Op. 79 No. 1 

Franz Liszt: Étude d'exécution transcendante No.12 (Chasse-Neige)

Franz Liszt: Première année de pélerinage: Suisse (6. Vallée d’Obermann)

Bela Bartok: Rhapsody, Op. 1 

Sergei Rachmaninoff: Sonata No. 1 in D Minor, Op. 28 

Johannes Brahms: Study No. 5 (for left hand alone) after Bach's Chaconne, BWV 1016. 1 

Although the Auditorium Parco della Musica has become one of my destinations of choice in the Eternal City, until recently my exploration of it had been limited to the Sala Santa Cecilia, its vast concert hall conceived for large-scale—or big name—performances. But then, earlier this month I finally got to check out the cool small Sala Petrassi with a delightful chamber music marathon, and last Wednesday, just in the nick of time as my stay in Rome is nearing its end, I had a ticket for a recital by one of the hottest newcomers on the scene in the last concert hall on my list, the medium-sized Sala Sinopoli. 

His name may sound Russian, but Alexandre Kantorow is as French as they come, from Clermont-Ferrand in fact, of all places, as is his dad, renowned violinist and conductor Jean-Jacques Kantorow. While still in his mid-twenties, Kantorow Junior has already won countless international awards, earned endless lavish praise, and regularly performed in the world’s most prestigious venues with famous friends. Add to that pristine resume unfussy good looks and a modern casual style, and you have classical music’s latest “chouchou” (My besotted mom’s own term). 

Therefore, I was totally elated when I saw a poster advertising his concert a few weeks ago at the Parco della Musica and I promptly got a ticket for it, even if said concert would take place at the ungodly hour of 8:30 PM on a school night. But hey, the Sala Sinopoli turned out to be a welcoming and comfortable concert hall, not unlike New York’s Avery Fisher Hall, the program was exciting, and I felt totally privileged to be able to experience Kantorow’s magic in person before he inevitably moves on to bigger—if not necessarily better—venues. 

At the appointed time, an endearingly serious-looking Kantorow climbed on the stage, sat down at the piano and, without further ado, got down to business with Brahms’ Rhapsody in B Minor, Op. 79 No. 1, which happens to start at a sustained speed. Kantorow consequently hit the ground running to dazzling but not ostentatious effect, before showing profound sensitivity while going through the highly contrasting subsequent episodes as well as astonishing technique while navigating Brahms’ treacherously intricate score. Let’s face it: This young man really has it all. 

Liszt was next, with “Chasse-neige” (Snowplow), the twelfth and last of his Transcendental Studies, and “Vallée d’Obermann” (Obermann’s Valley) from the second book of his Years of Pilgrimage dedicated to Switzerland, whose intense expressiveness could have easily been used by Kantorow as a ready excuse to go all sentimental or flamboyant on us. But he didn’t, as he seems to be the kind of virtuoso who puts his superlative skills to the service of the music instead of his own ego. Hence, we got to enjoy a double dose of pure musical bliss. 

Written when budding Czech composer Bartok was still honing his craft, his Rhapsody, Op. 1 was a neat choice to conclude the first half of the program, not only because of its discreet Lisztian touches or its subtle inspiration from Hungarian music, but also because it was simply a lovely treat, one that does not appear often enough on concert programs. 

After an intermission during which fellow concert-goers around me rightly raved about Kantorow’s “amazing technique”, “soul” and “lightness (of touch)”, we were back for more with Rachmaninoff’s sprawling Sonata No. 1 in D Minor, Op. 28. Starting and ending in darkness, this other rarely heard work takes the pianist and the audience through an often turbulent emotional journey, which even includes fleeting cameos by the Dies Irae, as if Rachmaninoff had not been able to channel his admittedly impressive creative juices into a tighter score, even after having made significant revisions to it. Kantorow, on the other hand, impeccably channeled Rachmaninoff and delivered another awe-inspiring performance. 

Truth be told, the last piece on the program, Brahms’ Study No. 5 (for left hand alone) after Bach's Chaconne, BWV 1016. 1, is the one that originally piqued my curiosity. Having gotten quite a few opportunities to hear Bach’s iconic Chaconne in its original form performed by various first-class violinists, I was wondering what it might sound like on the piano. Well, on Wednesday night, the result was definitely interesting, if a bit weird, and proved one more time that Kantorow can and will handle pretty much anything. 

It had been a long and no doubt taxing night for him, but he was kind enough to reward our loud and extended applause with a heart-felt rendition of “Mon cœur s’ouvre à ta voix” from Saint-Saëns’ Samson et Dalila, in the transcription by Victor Young and Nina Simone. And just as we had lost hope for more and were getting ready to leave, he eventually sat down at the piano one more time for an ethereally beautiful Petrarch's Sonnet No. 104 by Liszt, from, fittingly enough, his Second Year of Pilgrimage: Italy. And there we were.

Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia - Chamber Music Marathon - 04/07/24

Robert Schumann: Piano Quintet in E-Flat Major, Op. 44 

Antonin Dvorak: Piano Quintet No. 2 in A Major Op. 81, B. 155 

Johannes Brahms: Piano Quartet No.1 in G Minor, Op. 25 

Franz Schubert: Piano Quintet in A Major, D. 667 (The Trout) 

Teachers: Andrea Lucchesini: Piano 

Franco Petracchi: Piano 

Sonig Tchakerian: Violin 

Ivan Rabaglia: Violin 

Students: 

Pasquale Allegretti Gravina: Violin 

Gabriele Antinoro: Violin 

Sara Mazzarotto: Violin 

Tommaso Troisi: Violin 

Giovanni Mancini: Viola 

Lorenzo Meraviglia: Viola 

Matteo Mizera: Viola 

Daniele Valabrega: Viola 

Francesco Angelico: Cello 

Christian Barraco: Cello 

Filippo Boldrini: Cello 

Ludovica Cordova: Cello 

Emanuele Crucianelli: Cello 

Nicola Giacomelli: Piano 

Dimitri Malignan: Piano 

Rodolphe Menguy: Piano 

Francesco Maria Navelli: Piano 

Springtime, along with its longer and warmer days has arrived in Rome, and while the city has been frantically and often annoyingly trying to get ready for the jubilee next year (There were 6,702 work sites in early February, and while some have ended, others have popped up), it is still a wonderful time to be here, provided that unpredictable bouts of rain and predictable hordes of tourists do not spoil la dolce vita. 

My concert schedule has been kind of dormant lately, mostly because the Orchestra dell’Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia, which is basically Rome’s classical music home team, has been spending time in Salzburg for Easter and not much else has been happening, except for the variously talented but invariably indefatigable buskers regularly performing at the numerous landmarks all over the city. 

And then, earlier last week, just as I was walking by the quiet Auditorium Parco della Musica feeling rather desperate, I noticed a poster advertising a chamber music marathon featuring works by Schumann, Dvorak, Brahms, and Schubert in memory of Alfonso Guedin at 6:00 PM the following Sunday in the Sala Petrossi. I had no idea who Alfonso Guedin was, or where the Sala Petrossi was, but I was more than ready to partake in the tribute to him. 

I soon found out though, that Alfonso Guedin was a beloved violinist and violist teacher with the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia, who also led an illustrious career as a violist with the Academia’s orchestra and the Orchestra Sinfonica Nazionale della Rai. He passed away in 2022, and Sunday’s concert would be the second one featuring teachers and students of the Accademia playing together in various combinations to honor him. 

So, on Sunday, as if to conclude a splendid and busy weekend on a high note, I had my first foray into Parco della Musica’s Sala Petrassi, which turned out to be a sleek-looking and acoustically blessed medium-sized concert hall, which kind of reminded me of Carnegie Hall’s intimate and oh so cool Zankel Hall. I was even handed a program upon arrival, which is a very unusual thing in Europe, where you have to pay for them, but hey, I did not question the favor and happily grabbed it. 

As we were already running slightly late, the Academia’s president showed up and introduced the event, paid a short tribute to Alfonso Guedin, and a lengthy tribute to retiring maestro Franco Petracchi, an eminent—and very talkative—double bass player with particularly enduring ties with the Academia, who would be playing his penultimate concert on Sunday for Schubert’s irresistible Trout. Not a bad way to wrap up his long and prestigious career in the Eternal City. 

Eventually, 20 minutes after the official start time, the marathon was finally kicked off with Schumann’s ground-breaking Piano Quintet in E-Flat Major, Op. 44. Indeed, it looks like, amazingly enough, nobody had seriously thought of combining piano and string quartet before. And then, in 1842, not only did Schumann decide he was game for experimenting with it, but he also ended up writing one of chamber music’s most brilliant compositions at an astonishing speed. The musicians on the stage were apparently as excited to play it as we were to hear it, and the marathon was off to an excellent start. 

After sliding down a few seats to escape the fidgety young girl behind me (Note to parents: If you’ve undertaken the laudable mission of introducing your unprepared child to classical music, an extended chamber music performance is not a good place to start), I had the ideal spot to fully enjoy the stunning opening line coming from the cello in Dvorak’s Piano Quintet No. 2 in A Major Op. 81, B 155, as well as the impressive remainder of the highly melodic, perfectly balanced, and boldly wide-ranging piece. The Czech composer may have been the least exalted name on the program, but this quintet clearly stood second to none. 

After a well-deserved intermission and a partial exodus of the audience, the second half of the marathon started with Brahms’ Piano Quartet No.1 in G Minor, Op. 25, another widely acknowledged masterpiece of the genre. On Sunday, however, it distinguished itself not only for its well-known ambition, magnificence, and scope, although all of them were on full and dazzling display, but also because for the first time in all my decades of concert-going, I saw somebody actually talk on their phone during the performance. The incident was short and discreet, the culprit quickly switching to texting (One has to be grateful for the little favors), but it still felt like a new low in concert behavior had been reached. 

And then came Schubert’s The Trout, whose unusual instrumentation consisting of piano, violin, viola, cello and double bass would finally give us the opportunity to hear Franco Petracchi do this thing before he hangs up his double bass for good. Composed by the young city-dwelling Schubert as he was discovering and delighting in the joys of summer in the countryside, the ever-popular classic never fails to bring a breath of fresh air into stuffy concert halls. The dynamic take on it that filled the Sala Petrassi on Sunday evening did the trick once again, and also critically helped the audience members still in the race make it to the finish line in about three hours, which is incidentally and by far my best marathon time ever.

I concerti dell'Aula Magna - Gautier Capuçon & Frank Braley - Absolute Beethoven - 03/16/24

Ludwig van Beethoven: Cello Sonata No. 1 in F Major (Op. 5, No. 1) 

Ludwig van Beethoven: Cello Sonata No. 4 in C major (Op. 102, No. 1) 

Ludwig van Beethoven: Cello Sonata No. 2 in G Minor (Op. 5, No. 2) 

Ludwig van Beethoven: Cello Sonata No. 3 in A Major (Op. 69) 

Ludwig van Beethoven: Cello Sonata No. 5 in D Major (Op. 102, No. 2) 

Frank Braley: Piano 

Gautier Capuçon: Cello 

 Since I started spending my winters in Rome, my mom pretty much decided that her February birthday would be as good an excuse as any to come for a visit. This year, however, she had figured out that coming in March would enable her to enjoy longer days and milder temperatures (One thing she had not factored in though, was the more sudden weather changes that come with early spring, as she learned the hard way upon her arrival. Oh well). 

Another decisive factor for the timing of her visit this year was the recital of French cellist Gautier Capuçon, an admittedly terrific musician she has been innocently stalking since his beginnings, with Frank Braley, his frequent music partner she is quite familiar with as well, last Saturday afternoon. Even better, the program featured the entire set of sonatas for cello and piano by no less than Ludwig van Beethoven and, seriously, who does not love Beethoven? 

Although La Sapienza’s Aula Magna is unfortunately no longer within walking distance from my Roman home, I was still looking forward to being back in its intimate space, never mind the proudly fascist decor. Just because these days I have been getting my classical music fix at the Auditorium Parco della Musica does not mean I have forgotten all the smaller but just as wonderful performances I attended on La Sapienza’s campus. 

So last Saturday, after a work-filled morning, an unplanned but yummy Nepalese lunch in my old neighborhood, and a leisurely visit of the always stunning and blissfully uncrowded Terme di Diocleziano, we found ourselves in very good seats in the packed Aula Magna auditorium for a concert we had started planning about six months before its actual date. 

And I am happy to say that it was all worth the wait. Having seen them perform together often in the past, my mom claimed that Capuçon and Braley, long-time buddies since their days at the Conservatoire de Paris, haven’t let their now prestigious and busy individual careers get in the way of the tight musical bond they share. And sure enough, their joy of playing together was immediately evident on Saturday as they first launched into, logically enough, Beethoven’s Cello Sonata No. 1 in F Major (Op. 5, No. 1). 

Fact is, the Cello Sonata Op. 5, No. 1, and Beethoven’s other early sonata, the Cello Sonata No. 2 in G Minor (Op. 5, No. 2), are not only delightful compositions, but they were also ground-breaking works that boldly (and finally) gave the cello its own voice. No longer stuck in the continuo instrument role where it had been languishing forever, the cello was now an equal partner, with all the excitement and responsibility, not to mention possibilities, that new-found status entailed. 

On Saturday, in the hands of the confirmed wizard that is Capuçon, the cello gorgeously expressed itself with expertly burnished tones and naturally dignified gravity. Not to be outdone, Braley made sure to display an equally virtuosic disposition, and handled his part with plenty of confidence and zest. Thanks to those two gentlemen, the Op. 5 sonatas sounded as fresh and inventive as they probably did when they first came out in 1796 and quickly made history. 

Book-ended by the two Op. 5 sonatas stood the Cello Sonata No. 4 in C major (Op. 102, No. 1), the first of the two late sonatas, the one that is sometimes called the “Free Sonata” due to its avant-garde structure. Yes, Beethoven was breaking new ground again in terms of innovation and complexity about two decades after his first cello sonatas, and the result was as awe-inspiring as ever. The only difference being that, unlike the unconventional late works’ occasionally confused and frustrated audiences, we happily gobbled it all up. 

The Cello Sonata No. 5 in D Major (Op. 102, No. 2), which concluded Beethoven’s experiments with cello sonatas, and also wrapped up the official program on Saturday, is such a true marvel that it is no wonder the composer decided to quit the genre after he was done with it. Its most memorable feature is without a doubt the long and slow, and ever-changing, middle movement, in which the cello unabashedly and brilliantly takes the spotlight, before transitioning surprisingly and seamlessly into the glorious finale. 

Right before, the middle Cello Sonata No. 3 in A Major (Op. 69), which is definitely the longest and arguably the most popular of the five, had opened the second part of the concert with the kind of brazenly heroic élan, and no real slowing down, that Beethoven would have loved. So much intense drama, so little time. That one could actually boast of being the most Beethovian of them all, and it would be mightily hard to disagree. 

Besides his superior musicianship, Capuçon is also well-known for being particularly generous when it comes to encores. Therefore, our hearts started to sink when, after a couple of rounds of effusive applause, the lights came back on in the concert hall, and people started to leave in droves. What??? Fortunately, the remaining few eventually got what we were all still dearly hoping for when, after finally settling down again, the duo treated us to an impeccably soaring, deeply soulful version of the perennially favorite “Meditation” from Massenet’s Thais. And that was all. And that was perfect.